Microsoft Offers Official Wallpapers for Windows Phone

This is a first: Microsoft today is touting a collection of “official” wallpaper images for Windows Phone that users can apply to their handset’s lock screen. As you might expect, the images are reminiscent of the wallpaper Microsoft has previously offered for desktop versions of Windows, but are designed for the screen resolution and portrait orientation used by Windows Phone.

“Today we’re unveiling a new nature series of wallpapers from Windows Phone fan and London-based graphic designer Levi Freeman,” Microsoft’s Michael Stroh writes in the Windows Phone Blog. “Levi Freeman, a Windows Phone fan and London-based graphic artist, created a new set of nature wallpapers approved by our design team. What’s unique about these is that they’re the first to carry our design team’s official seal of approval.”

There are 8 wallpapers available, and each is a stunning photograph in its own right. (In fact, I’d love to see a companion wallpaper collection for Windows 7.)

On Mr. Freeman’s web site, you can learn more about the wallpapers and of course download them. He writes that Albert Shum, the Windows Phone Design Studio General Manager at Microsoft, contacted him and explained that he “really enjoyed” his work, “especially the recent wallpapers” that I made for people with Windows Phones. Would he be interested in an official endorsement? Of course!

What’s neat is that he’s even providing a unique (if somewhat tedious) way to acquire the wallpaper: You can navigate to his web site and view the images and then use the Bing Vision feature to scan the QR code for each to load them in IE. To download, tap and hold on the image and choose Save Picture.

(Saved pictures can be found in Pictures, Albums, Saved Pictures.)

I’ve included smaller versions of these wallpaper images below for illustrative purposes, but please visit Mr. Freeman’s site to actually download them: